When the residents of the Bird Sisters transitional home, in Waynesburg, welcomed State Sen. Camera Bartolotta and other state legislators to dinner in their facility in early October, they made lasagna. Bartolotta said the dining room of the house was packed with residents and law-makers.

“They had a wonderful dinner and they were cooking all day,” Bartolotta said. “It was like being in someone’s home. Everyone was so nice and so happy to be there, and so proud of the house and the people in it.”

Bartolotta, R-46, toured the Bird Sisters and Oxford houses – both three-fourths facilities which assist those recovering from addiction–after helping them obtain grants from the Magellan Cares Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on quality healthcare accessibility.

Bartolotta was contacted by the foundation earlier this year for suggestions for grant giveaways.

She gave a list of organizations in District 46 that fulfilled the Magellan Cares mission, and was thrilled to find out several of her recommendations had been selected.

“They have got such a great program going,” she said of the Oxford and Bird Sisters houses. “Because once they’re up and running, they’re self-sufficient: it’s a wonderful, safe environment for these people in recovery.”

The Bird Sisters home received a grant sum of $2,500 to put toward the facility as they see fit.

“I know it doesn’t sound like a lot,” said Bartolotta, “but when these facilities are able to give scholarships to individuals who desperately want to be in that kind of an environment but can’t afford to right away, these scholarships mean the world. Sometimes, they’re really life or death.”

For Bartolotta, getting to know the residents of the facilities on a personal level is just one way to address the national initiative to fight the opioid epidemic.

“This is something that is a monumental concern,” she said, “because it’s not just destroying the lives of people who are addicted: it’s destroying their families, their friends, their community, where they work–it really is something that we have to look at from every angle.”

The senator has introduced several bills and pieces of legislation in the past three years.

As ongoing drug issues in the community progress, activists have brought up the expanding need for recovery programs nearby. Bartolotta addressed this as a specific problem in her district.

“We definitely need detox facilities; that’s something that we’re really lacking,” she said. “Not just in Greene County, but in Washington County as well, and across the board, because the need for it is so great right now.”

The senator focuses on attacking the epidemic from a medical and caregiver standpoint, citing the fact that four out of five opioid addicts started by following a doctor’s orders with prescription pain medications.

Some of her legislation includes shortening the timeframe for prescribing opioids from 30 days to seven, and instilling guidelines for proper disposal of leftover pills.

She is currently working on a bill that requires all treatment facilities to educate patients on every FDA-approved treatment method, regardless of what method is actually being provided.

“Because too many times, [one method doesn’t work, and patients will think] ‘Oh, I’m incurable,'” said Bartolotta. “So, I want to be sure that these people aren’t falling through the cracks.”

Bartolotta is also concerned about the way addiction is often treated separately from mental health issues in Pennsylvania, despite the strong correlation between the two ailments. She met with the Department of Drug and Alcohol Prevention chair to discuss discrepancies between different licensing regulations, which keep facilities from providing proper treatment to multiple categories of patients.

“So we really need to take a look at some of these laws and regulations that we have in Pennsylvania that make it impossible for a facility to do more than one thing,” she said. “It is very complicated, and we need to untie the knots that prevent people from doing good.”

With 90 municipalities in District 46, Bartolotta said she tries her hardest to stay engrossed in the recovery process.

Visiting treatment facilities like the Bird Sisters allows her to get to know the issues on a deeper level.

“It’s nice to be able to help the grassroots, just boots on the ground, just every day people who are trying their best to make a difference,” she said.

“These aren’t big hospitals or corporate entities providing care. These are just neighborhood folks-many, many of them are recovering themselves and they just want to give back.”